The treasonous ramblings of a grouchy old cripple.
I am a proud Father, G*d-fearing Patriot, Strict Original-intent Constitutionalist, and vocal opponent of all Domestic Enemies regardless of their color or party.
I'm also completely convinced that it's long past time for us to stop beating around the bush, time for us to speak clearly about EXACTLY what is coming.
God help us - and God Save Our Republic!

Given my political leanings (strict original-intent Constitutionalist/minarchist - just like our Founding Fathers) and my tendency to preach to any who will listen (and lots who won't) it would be nothing short of a miracle for me to not already be on some "potential domestic terrorist" watch-list.

So... Why do I think this deviously mis-named "health-care bill" is such a huge problem?

First, because it's patently unconstitutional.

The Constitution limits Federal Government power to 18 specific things (Article 1 Section 8) and goes on to say (in the 10th Amendment) that ALL other powers are reserved to the states, or to the people. Period. Therefore, this action is a gross abuse of our system of Government - something which should never be tolerated.

The penalty for willful violation of this "individual mandate" is up to $250,000 in fines and (not 10 - oops) 5 years in prison - for failure to buy INSURANCE?!!. WHAT country is this again?

If you don't like what the Constitution says, amend it. It's been done 27 times, so it's not exactly an unknown or impossible procedure...

If you don't understand why that MATTERS, well... Just go ahead and label me a racist right-wing extremist and go back to worshiping at the altar of totalitarian government. May your chains rest lightly upon you...

The Government who is powerful enough to give you everything you want is also powerful enough to take everything you have. -- Thomas Jefferson

An overwhelming majority of the things our Federal Government does are rightly classed as "unconstitutional" - a fact which saddens me more than I could say - but this is quite simply intolerable for a number of reasons. I'll attempt to explain some of them to those who care to read:

(1) This is the largest power-grab in the history of our Republic.

"Free health care for EVERYBODY!" seems like a really warm, fuzzy, down-right generous proposition for those who lack the intellectual capacity to see through the surface. That nothing is EVER free is a basic fact of reality.

SOMEONE has to pay for it, which means quite literally that half the people in our nation will be forced into virtual slavery - to involuntary labor for the further benefit of others.

This is bad, but it's not even close to the worst aspect of this travesty.

(2) This gives the Federal government access to the most private details of your life.

There's nothing more sacred than your relationship with your doctor. "Doctor-patient confidentiality" is a critical aspect of our most basic freedom! Take away that confidentiality, and now you won't DARE to tell your doctor anything you wouldn't want to be made public!

(3) This information WILL be used to further government power.

How long do you think it will be before some genius AINO* in DC decides to help fight the war on drugs by requiring a drug-test be administered at every doctor visit? Then all we have to do is lock up anyone coming up "dirty" and... The whole drug-problem is solved!

Since the Government "owns" all the medical records, this won't even require the Doctor to "report" you -- all they have to do is program the database to look for "positive" results and forward your name, address, description and photo (cross-referenced from Driver-license records) over to the DEA and... Off to jail you go!

Do you want those powerful people to be able to deny you life-saving medical care as easily as they can subject you to an IRS audit?

Further, there ARE fates worse than death. How would you like to be denied pain-relieving drugs as you die of cancer? After an accident? All this would take is a note in your Government medical file - "we won't pay for pain relief or cancer treatment. This one isn't worth saving."

If you - somehow - think you could stand the risk, what about your wife? Your CHILDREN? Would you be willing to speak against the government knowing THEY might be tortured (by witholding pain treatment) or allowed to die (by witholding other treatment) as a result?

(5) This will open the door to all sorts of other restrictions on Liberty.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis

"Taxpayers have to pay to provide your diabetes care, so we have the right to insist you not eat candy, ice-cream, or other 'unhealthy' foods."

"Taxpayers have to pay to take care of you, and everyone knows obesity causes all sorts of medical problems - so we have the right to insist you lose weight.""Taxpayers have to pay to provide cardiac care, so we have the right to insist you do at least 3 hours of aerobics weekly!"

"Taxpayers have to pay to treat your liver-failure, so we have the right to insist you stop drinking."

I could go on, and on (and on) - but the reality is really very simple: Free people are entitled to do anything they please, so long as they don't hurt anyone else.

This bill - and the "logical" measures that *WILL* follow, will do more to destroy what freedom we have left than the sum-total of every Federal enactment in the history of our republic.

I am not a subject, I am a citizen.

I am a free man, and I will do anything in my power to remain so.

I will resist every expansion of tyranny for one simple reason:

This man.

He could be anybody. He'd fit right in with the photo-albums I've inherited - maybe Grandpa, or his brother? Who knows where he's going - but he brought his coat.

Just like this bill - if we're too focused on the subject we cannot see what's really happening.

We need some more information...I've never been able to understand how people could get to the place where *ANY* of these people are.

If you've read this far, and you're not in total agreement with everything I've said, I can almost guarantee you're now thinking "Oh, now THIS is stupid. You can't possibly compare the US Government with the Nazis! That can't happen HERE!"

Do you think - for one minute - that anyone in Germany went into their voting-booth thinking

"I'll vote for these Nazi characters - because I'm evil, and I know they'll murder millions of people outright, and start a war that will lead to the deaths of many millions more!"

Of course not.

They were in a major economic depression, tired of war, and looking for a charismatic leader to bring them back to the greatness that had been theirs prior to their government getting them into a war which ended up being utterly without justification.

The guy they found gave GREAT speeches, promised to fix everything, give everybody free health-care... He promised CHANGE! He gave the people HOPE!

Sound familiar?

They elected that monster for the same reasons we elected Dear Reader.

Which brings be back to this guy... Every time I stumble over this picture, I'm fascinated.

How does a man become willing to take his coat and sit on the edge of a pit full of people he's just watched being murdered, and stand there quietly waiting his turn to die with no more apparent WILL than if he were waiting for a bus?

One need only read the history of the time and place to understand: The government started out with all sorts of lofty promises, then they began whittling away at the rights and freedoms of the people.

Each new usurpation more outrageous, but the people simply ran out of outrage. Some of them ran out of it so completely that they'd stand around like cattle, waiting for the butcher to run his bolt into their brain.

But it didn't START this way... Like all tyranny it started with bright promises and rousing speeches - firm hope for a better tomorrow!

Every single totalitarian enactment was accepted because it was supposed to make things BETTER!

Gather up the guns, so we can stop all this VIOLENCE!

Here - wear this little yellow star so we'll know who's who.

Every single government law is backed up by guns. LOTS of them.

If my Government decides to declare me a criminal and subject me to prison because I refuse to buy health insurance, and I resist, THEIR AGENTS WILL KILL ME.

Do you need examples of this? Really?

Fine. Watch this. That's a commercial for products being sold to your friendly neighborhood police officer. Don't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

But not if we hold our Government to its proper Constitutional Boundaries!!

Today it's "health care."

Tomorrow?

UPDATE: A friend on another forum - not without justification - called "Godwin" on me.

Here's my response:======================================I really don't blame you for feeling that way, but... The parallels are undeniable. Theirs was the first great "experiment" in Socialism.

People NEED to be "Shocked" - they need to understand that for Queen Nancy to issue a "mandate" like she has WILL GET PEOPLE KILLED.

There's no difference that I can see between dying due to "health care rationing", dying while resisting arrest for violating her "mandate" and dying from a bullet in the back of the head.

All are victims of socialism.

It's time to call a spade a spade, and a fascist a fascist.====================================

Totalitarianism by any other name will still smell of rotting corpses - my apologies to Mr. Shakespear...------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: I wish I'd had time to flesh this out more - there's a lot more I'd like to say, things I'd like to clarify - but life intervenes... I have other responsibilities.

32 comments:

I just wonder what the feds would...could...do if several millions of taxpayers just left that little check box, "Do you have qualified health insurance?" blank? Or, not even file when it comes time? Several million people who refuse to knuckle under. The feds don't have enough people to arrest or charge them all. It'd almost be like "jury nullification."

Did you even read what you linked to?The $15,000 is for a FAMILY plan, not PER PERSON!That's $1,250 a month. Have you even priced insurance? I have the cheapest family plan offered by my employer, and it is more than that - and that's the cheapest!Jeez, read your own shit AND LINKS before posting!

Excellent post Dad. I've emailed this far and ide in the hope that it will go viral.

I - for one - am sick of being in fear of my government. It's time those son's of bitches were in fear of WE THE PEOPLE!

To Scott who has indicated that $15,000 per family is perfectly acceptable: You sir are balanced on the edge of the pit. Being a subservient sheep must suit you just fine. BUT YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR REAL AMERICANS!!!!

Yeah, Scott - I read every word of every link while also writing a 10,000+ word post. Idiot.

Fine - so I misquoted a bit, accidentally. Good job finding the one semi-accurate thing in my post and focusing on it. Does it really matter? If you're paying much more than that now, then be assured you'll be paying a crap-load MORE once the socialists get into the mix.

Show me ONE THING the .gov has ever done that brought down prices. Just one - I'll wait.*

FACT: Currently, a top-tier PPO plan for an individual is about $660 per month - I know this because that's what I paid for my COBRA plan. Our "family" plan - with much higher out-of-pocket costs, is about double that.

Further, if you read the CBO report it actually puts the cost for a middle-class 2-income family over $20k - and we all know that's a low-ball figure as are all government "estimates."

First you state that the constitution could be altered... with an implication (at least to me) that if congress WERE "authorized" to pass a health care bill because the constitution was amended... that would be ok with you...

And then you say this: "I am a free man, and I will do anything in my power to remain so."

By that I would have to assume that you don't even consider a liberty destroying "amendment" would ever be made. But there is certainly evil precedent... the prohibition of alcohol.

That one was repealed, after horrible consequences nearly tore the country apart - and set the stage for the "war on drugs, the war on guns," and the war on just about everything else.

Why would anyone support constitutional amendment - by the same people who are pushing the health care insanity, by the way... ?????

Hey, Scott. My family plan, provided by my employer and underwritten by Aetna costs me $72 a bi-weekly pay period. That's a full featured plan with a $400/yr family deductable. It also includes a perscription plan for another $5 a pay period.

If you want to pay $1250 a month, feel free. I don't. Nor do I want to subsidize healthcare for you or some parasite.

Crucis, your "family plan" costs your employer $1000/month which costs you via a lower salary. Your employer has already "socialized health care" and as a result the average salary at your company is probably 10K lower than it would be without health care "benefit".

DD: Ignore Scott. What he thinks he knows could dance on the head of a pin. Or was that dance on his pinhead?

You weren't inaccurate. There are family plans out there for a lot less than $15K a year. My wife and I have the Standard Blue Cross/Blue Shield family plan for less than $400 a month. Yeah, my former employer is underwriting a large chunk of that plan, but I would have gotten more salary and/or a better retirement if I had had a choice - which I didn't.

I don't care if there are plans out there for $1.50 a month, the government has no right mandating anyone to buy insurance, or anything else. Although they _have_ forced me to spend quite a bit on ammunition.

BTW, have we been paying attention to the fact that the article said it would cost $15K by 2016? At the rate the Fed is priting money, I believe the CBO may be underestimating how much insurance will cost by then.

Yes, it is available for a lot less right now, but the chances of that being the case after passage - and implementation - is ridiculously small. Certainly few of the current middle class that remains employed will be able to afford both insurance and much of anything else, like a mortgage, car payments, dental care, college for their children, etc.

Again though, arguing cost is missing the point. We will be paying for it out of pocket and through taxes, to cover ourselves and those who cannot - or will not - pay their own way. As well as the soon-to-be amnestied citizens of other countries.

Perhaps "state's rights" needs to include locally-operated hog farms fed with each state's own betrayers of their sacred trust. There simply isn't any place near DC big enough to do the job, and it would be more satisfying to take care of our own traitors at home. Just a thought for when things get "interesting".

The Constitution clearly lists the Enumerated Powers granted to Congress in Article I, Section 8. Nowhere in those powers listed is there any authority granted for Congress to regulate or touch in any way, the health care of "We the People"!

Some point to the "general welfare" stipulation in Clause 1 as a key provision granting the federal government the authority to regulate health care. However, in The Federalist No. 41, James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," argued that "general welfare" in Clause 1 does not give the federal government unlimited power, and thereby rendering each of the following clauses redundant. Madison asked rhetorically, "For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? He continued, "Nothing is more natural nor more common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars."

In Federalist Paper No. 45, "The Alleged Danger From the Powers of the Union to the State Governments Considered", James Madison stated: "Having shown that no one of the powers transferred to the federal government is unnecessary or improper, the next question to be considered is, whether the whole mass of them will be dangerous to the portion of authority left in the several States... The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State".

Madison sought to address concerns of critics who warned that the "general welfare" clause opened the door to unlimited abuse. The Federalist Papers were public arguments to try to convince people to ratify the Constitution. They weren't just writing about the general welfare clause for the heck of it. There was a real concern by people who were opposed to the Constitution that the general welfare clause would give unlimited power to the federal government to do whatever it wanted, claiming it was done to 'support the general welfare.' Referencing the "general welfare" concerns, Madison even accused critics of "laboring for objections" by "stooping to such a misconstruction." It wasn't just the opponents of the Constitution saying there had to be limits to this. It was the proponents of the Constitution who were saying, in order for it to be general welfare, it must apply to one of the enumerated powers. Because the power to regulate each citizen's medical care is not included among enumerated powers, the federal government does not have the authority to mess with America's health care system.

What about the courts? What have they had to say on this matter? Well, In Linder v. United States, 268 U.S. 5, 18, 45 S. Ct. 446 (1925), the court ruled: "Obviously, direct control of medical practice in the states is beyond the power the federal government." And in U.S. v. Anthony, 15 Supp. 553, 555, (S.D. Ca., 1936) and U.S. v. Evers, 453 F. Supp. 1141, 1150 (M.D. Ala., 1978), the court ruled: "...The direct control of medical practice has been left to the states." And, in Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton Railroad Co, 295 U.S. 330, 55 S. Ct. 758 (1935), the United States Supreme Court said, "Provision for free medical assistance, nursing, clothing, food, housing, and education of children, and a hundred other matters might with equal propriety be proposed as tending to relieve the employee of mental strain and worry.... These matters obviously lie outside the orbit of congressional power.”

The federal government does not have the power to regulate Americans simply because they are there. Significantly, in two key cases, United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000), the Supreme Court specifically rejected the proposition that the commerce clause allowed Congress to regulate noneconomic activities merely because, through a chain of causal effects, they might have an economic impact. These decisions reflect judicial recognition that the commerce clause is not infinitely elastic and that, by enumerating its powers, the framers denied Congress the type of general police power that is freely exercised by the states.

Lastly, Congress cannot use its power to tax solely as a means of controlling conduct that it could not otherwise reach through the commerce clause or any other constitutional provision. In the 1922 case Bailey v. Drexel Furniture, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not impose a "tax" to penalize conduct that it could not also regulate under the commerce clause.

The U.S. Constitution does not authorize ANY form of government run insurance, nor government interference in Health care, period. This is a matter for each state to decide for themselves; just as it was meant, and expressed, in the 10th Amendment, which states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people".

I have yet to read anywhere the one most basic response to all this health care plan nonsense. Agreed, it's UNconstitutional. But even more basic than that: you can't COMPEL one to contract, and that's what they are planning to do. The law of contracts dictates that ANY contract must be, along with the other requirements of consideration and time - VOLUNTARY.

For those who care to read this far, I thought it would be good to be sure everyone knows who "Scott" is.

From his comments on another blog:"...A MAJORITY of voters elected Obama as president AND increased the Democrat's majority in the House AND Senate.The people have spoken.Go suck on a tea bag..."

Ah, yes. Another intellectual giant of the Left.

What Scott is saying here is that winning an election by a 3% margin and gaining a majority in Congress entitles the "ruling party" to do anything they please - no matter how crooked, no matter how contrary to their campaign promises, no matter what sort of corruption is necessary to get the votes to pass their agenda.

Ergo -- according to Scott -- there can be no objection to the Iraq war, the deviously misnamed "patriot act" or any of the other abuses of the Bush administration.

Sure could have saved themselves a lot of vitriol if they'd figured this out in 2000, huh?

Gee... I wonder if he'd have said the same thing about Germany in the 30's?

Obviously I'm dabbling in some hyperbole here -- as we all know, unquestioning, fellating obeisance to unconstitutional government diktat only applies to his messiah-shaped, kool-ade flavored lollipop (AKA "Dear Reader").

Like most of his ilk, he apparently lacks the intellectual capacity to realize Dear Reader and his puppet-masters may not be in power forever, or to question how all this power might be abused when the republitards eventually take over again.

Sinclair Lewis's book IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE was one of the books which really opened my eyes, and got me to thinking about what a government could become if citizens weren't paying attention. I was a teenager in the late 1970's when I read it - and thinks have gone down hill steadily since that time. During those past 30 years, media will blame inanimate objects for crime (guns) and claim that PTB are the only ones qualified to handle problems and deal with them (as if an election elevated their IQ).

As for those who "call Godwin" on you, I've dealt with them before as well--nothing more than mindless parrots who can't grasp concepts and principles.

I do think your thoughts of civil disobedience are a bit premature, or futile. Standing alone, individuals will lose against the government. A better approach is support the 10th Amendment movements, nullification, and even secession if it comes to that. Only through sovereign States will we ward off and dismantle the Federal leviathan.

If you make yourself a regular at the 10th Amendment Center website, you may also become more optimistic about the future.

I'm real glad I went to your older posts (the recent ones are way too long for me to concentrate), because I came to this one. What you write about here, I lived with over 6 decades. My mom and dad went through the horrors you here document, and just talking about it with me, or, more often, NOT wanting to talk about it with me, branded my thoughts from youth to LOOK OUT for, or to be more accurate, to develop another sense, to try and retard or prevent such calamity from occurring again. I could tell you stories my mom told me about Auschwitz that would make your hairs stand. Or those my dad told me.

Well, your article shook me up. That picture of the guy with the coat! I remember as a kid, even though then religion was almost foreign to me, I saw a picture of a hunchbacked grandmother nudging along her little granddaughter. They must have been hustled off to somewhere. Anyhow, I cried alone for hours! At the cruelty of it all. The inhumanity of it all. Sudden changes of upheaval wrought upon the most innocent.

Today, many decades later, I'm absolutely convinced people without belief in G-d can easily fall prey to such bestiality. Leave a man to his own mind, and it can twist and pervert any which way. Without belief in the divine, for me that includes the Torah, why this world would soon look like the one you speak of here - the one that the interloper in the White House, with his lowlife friends and all-powerful remote controllers (the big boys wth all the money), aim to achieve (a universal feudal sysytem).

Thanks for giving me a moment to, ironically, paradoxically, enjoy - if only because we share this idea together. Be well.

About Me

Child of G*d.
Father.
Patriot.
Man.
Those who understand will also note the order in which I listed my main Responsibilities. Without due deference to the first 3, the 4th would not be possible. I am entitled to call myself "A Man" because I devote myself to my G*d, my Family, and my Republic above all else.
Beyond these, I am also an Oath-keeper and a 111-per.
Liberalism/progressivism/socialism/obama-mania is (not "are", IS) a mental disorder.